Model reference · open weights
KaLM-Embedding-Gemma3-2511 is an open-weight embedding model from tencent. AxForge deploys and operates it for you on dedicated EU-owned hardware — with the licence handled where one is required.
Available as managed deployment — configured and operated for you on dedicated EU hardware, quoted per deployment.
What it is
| Maker | tencent |
|---|---|
| Type | Embedding models |
| Task | Embeddings |
| Parameters (lead) | 11.8B |
| Runs with | sentence-transformers |
| Based on | google/gemma-3-12b-pt |
| Released | 2025-11-04 |
| Popularity | 17k downloads / month |
| Licence | Commercial licence needed |
About
KaLM-Embedding-Gemma3-12B-2511 is a versatile and compact embedding model, which achieves SOTA performance in MMTEB (due to 11-2025).
| Rank (Borda) | Model | Mean (Task) | Mean (TaskType) | Bitext Mining | Classification | Clustering | Instruction Reranking | Multilabel Classification | Pair Classification | Reranking | Retrieval | STS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | KaLM-Embedding-Gemma3-12B-2511 | 72.32 | 62.51 | 83.76 | 77.88 | 55.77 | 5.49 | 33.03 | 84.73 | 67.27 | 75.66 | 79.02 |
| 2 | llama-embed-nemotron-8b | 69.46 | 61.09 | 81.72 | 73.21 | 54.35 | 10.82 | 29.86 | 83.97 | 67.78 | 68.69 | 79.41 |
| 3 | Qwen3-Embedding-8B | 70.58 | 61.69 | 80.89 | 74.00 | 57.65 | 10.06 | 28.66 | 86.40 | 65.63 | 70.88 | 81.08 |
| 4 | gemini-embedding-001 | 68.37 | 59.59 | 79.28 | 71.82 | 54.59 | 5.18 | 29.16 | 83.63 | 65.58 | 67.71 | 79.40 |
| 5 | Qwen3-Embedding-4B | 69.45 | 60.86 | 79.36 | 72.33 | 57.15 | 11.56 | 26.77 | 85.05 | 65.08 | 69.60 | 80.86 |
| 6 | Qwen3-Embedding-0.6B | 64.34 | 56.01 | 72.23 | 66.83 | 52.33 | 5.09 | 24.59 | 80.83 | 61.41 | 64.65 | 76.17 |
| 7 | gte-Qwen2-7B-instruct | 62.51 | 55.93 | 73.92 | 61.55 | 52.77 | 4.94 | 25.48 | 85.13 | 65.55 | 60.08 | 73.98 |
| 8 | Linq-Embed-Mistral | 61.47 | 54.14 | 70.34 | 62.24 | 50.60 | 0.94 | 24.77 | 80.43 | 64.37 | 58.69 | 74.86 |
| 9 | multilingual-e5-large-instruct | 63.22 | 55.08 | 80.13 | 64.94 | 50.75 | -0.40 | 22.91 | 80.86 | 62.61 | 57.12 | 76.81 |
| 10 | embeddinggemma-300m | 61.15 | 54.31 | 64.40 | 60.90 | 51.17 | 5.61 | 24.82 | 81.40 | 63.25 | 62.49 | 74.73 |
Using this model becomes easy when you have sentence-transformers installed:
pip install -U sentence-transformers
You can use the model like this:
from sentence_transformers import SentenceTransformer
import torch
model = SentenceTransformer(
"tencent/KaLM-Embedding-Gemma3-12B-2511",
trust_remote_code=True,
model_kwargs={
"torch_dtype": torch.bfloat16,
"attn_implementation": "flash_attention_2", # Optional
},
)
model.max_seq_length = 512
sentences = ["This is an example sentence", "Each sentence is converted"]
prompt = "Instruct: Classifying the category of french news.\nQuery:"
embeddings = model.encode(
sentences,
prompt=prompt,
normalize_embeddings=True,
batch_size=256,
show_progress_bar=True,
)
print(embeddings)
Or you can use encode_query and encode_document to automatically add the default prompt for queries ("Instruct: Given a query, retrieve documents that answer the query \nQuery: ") and documents (""), respectively.
from sentence_transformers import SentenceTransformer
import torch
model = SentenceTransformer(
"tencent/KaLM-Embedding-Gemma3-12B-2511",
trust_remote_code=True,
model_kwargs={
"torch_dtype": torch.bfloat16,
"attn_implementation": "flash_attention_2", # Optional
},
)
model.max_seq_length = 512
queries = [
"What is the capital of China?",
"Explain gravity",
]
documents = [
"The capital of China is Beijing.",
"Gravity is a force that attracts two bodies towards each other. It gives weight to physical objects and is responsible for the movement of planets around the sun.",
]
query_embeddings = model.encode_query(queries)
document_embeddings = model.encode_document(documents)
similarities = model.similarity(query_embeddings, document_embeddings)
print(similarities)
Note: Since vllm only supports the Gemma3ForCausalLM model class and not Gemma3TextModel, model parameters must be loaded by specifying the CausalLM branch via revision="CausalLM".
from vllm import LLM
sentences = ["This is an example sentence", "Each sentence is converted"]
# Create an LLM.
# You should pass task="embed" for embedding models
model = LLM(
model="tencent/KaLM-Embedding-Gemma3-12B-2511",
task="embed",
enforce_eager=True,
revision="CausalLM", # specify the CausalLM branch for Gemma3ForCausalLM config
)
outputs = model.embed(sentences)
embeddings = [output.outputs.embedding for output in outputs]
Verify the vLLM logs to ensure parameters are loaded correctly; incorrect branch specifications do not trigger exception errors.
If issues arise during the vLLM download and loading process, it is recommended to manually download the model parameters to a local directory:
huggingface-cli download tencent/KaLM-Embedding-Gemma3-12B-2511 --revision CausalLM --local-dir KaLM-Embedding-Gemma3-12B-CausalLM
If you find this model useful, please consider giving a star and citation.
@misc{zhao2025kalmembeddingv2,
title={KaLM-Embedding-V2: Superior Training Techniques and Data Inspire A Versatile Embedding Model},
author={Xinping Zhao and Xinshuo Hu and Zifei Shan and Shouzheng Huang and Yao Zhou and Xin Zhang and Zetian Sun and Zhenyu Liu and Dongfang Li and Xinyuan Wei and Youcheng Pan and Yang Xiang and Meishan Zhang and Haofen Wang and Jun Yu and Baotian Hu and Min Zhang},
year={2025},
eprint={2506.20923},
archivePrefix={arXiv},
primaryClass={cs.CL},
url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.20923},
}
@misc{hu2025kalmembedding,
title={KaLM-Embedding: Superior Training Data Brings A Stronger Embedding Model},
author={Xinshuo Hu and Zifei Shan and Xinping Zhao and Zetian Sun
From the published model card. Full card on the HuggingFace links in the sidebar.
Using it via the API
Once AxForge deploys kalm-embedding-gemma3-2511 for you, it answers on the OpenAI-compatible API — the same base URL and keys as every other model. (kalm-embedding-gemma3-2511 below is illustrative; you get the exact model name on deployment.)
$ curl -sS https://api.axforge.ai/v1/embeddings \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $AXFORGE_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"model":"kalm-embedding-gemma3-2511","input":"text to embed"}'
Create an account — your API key is available in the console. 5M tokens/month currently included with every new account at launch.